Jim Booher - Inducted 2008

One of the founders of the South Dakota Athletic Trainers Association, Booher was inducted into the National Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame in 1998. The Ashland, Neb., native and 1965 Nebraska Wesleyan grad has been an athletic trainer and instructor/professor at South Dakota State since 1967. He split time between the university and Brookings Hospital until 1975, when he became a full-time staff member at SDSU.

Booher received physical therapy training at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., then earned a master's degree in HPER at SDSU in 1969. He completed his doctorate at the University of Utah in 1976.

He heads one of the top athletic training operations not only in the Upper Midwest but the country. He has been responsible for the development and growth of the athletic training-physical therapy program at SDSU and has had exceptional results in placing students in physical therapy schools as well as the profession of athletic training. Booher has written a manual on the prevention and care of athletic injuries and he also co-authored a textbook titled "Athletic Injury Assessment." He has written a number of articles and been a clinician for countless symposiums, workshops and courses.

At Nebraska Wesleyan, he played on the Plainsmen basketball team that lost to SDSU in the regional finals in 1963, and he also was a track standout, twice winning the high jump at the Howard Wood Dakota Relays.

After college, Booher coached and played on Spies slowpitch teams of Brookings that won four state titles. He also played on Harold's Printer independent basketball teams that won several state titles.

He is a member of the halls of fame of Nebraska Wesleyan (1980), the South Dakota Amateur Softball Association (2002), the South Dakota Athletic Trainers Association (1990) and the Mid-America Athletic Trainers Association (1996). He also received the North Central Conference Honor Award in 1987.

(Booher is back right in bottom photo)